In a recent survey, when MPs were asked which books they were taking away on their summer holiday, they told us what they presumably thought we wanted to hear.

Ffion Hague's The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George's Life came top of the pile and the rest of the top 10 was scattered with worthy tomes from Ffion's lesser half William, Alastair Campbell, Barack Obama as well as the very serious sounding Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience. It was the same story when the recommended reading list David Cameron sent out to his MPs just before the summer break found its way into the papers.

The faintly depressing list is apparently something of a Tory tradition, but covering everything from history to political philosophy and corporate social responsibility, it didn't exactly sound like a recipe for a great night in. Now we know that MPs have a very serious job to do, but are we really to believe that they are able to resist the lure of the airport novel?

If the survey is to be believed, while the rest of us are stuffing novels about nothing very much in particular into our hand luggage, our politicians have browsed through the two-for-one offers and said, "No thanks I've got a copy of My Story: Pulling No Punches by John Prescott in my suitcase, that'll do for me".

Admittedly, many have successfully avoided the perils of duty free by holidaying in Britain, but is it really likely that they have been sitting on windswept beach in Scarborough nodding sagely through Political Hypocrisy by David Runciman while their kids spend their inheritance on the 2p slot machines?

My own guess is that most Tory MPs probably filed the recommended reading list in the nearest waste paper bin and when approached by Waterstone's, they quickly racked their brains for an answer which would please the headmaster.

However, they aren't the only ones too embarrassed to admit a liking for a little pulp fiction.

The world of publishing must be the only sector where lack of popularity has become a sign of credibility.

After various failed attempts, I decided to admit to myself that not only would I never, ever finish James Joyce's Ulysses, I wouldn't even get past the first two pages.

It didn't take long to get over the sense of defeat, but why is it the arbiters of what's good and what's not in the literary world, often decide the more impenetrable the work the better?

I'm not saying that Jackie Collins is better
than Joyce because the sentences are shorter, just that sometimes it's okay to want to be entertained in the easiest, least thought-provoking way.

And wanting the occasional happy ending doesn't make you intellectually bankrupt.